Homeland Security Funds R&D for Cell Phone Toxic Chemical Function

Apr 15, 2010

Today, a cell phone is often a "smartphone," complete with a three-to-five megapixel lens built in, an MP3 player, GPS, or even a bar code scanner. This 'Swiss-Army-knife' trend represents the natural progression of technology. As chips become smaller/more advanced, cell phones absorb new functions.

What if new functions could protect cell phone carriers from toxic chemicals?

Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) Cell-All is an initiative to equip cell phones with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals. A chip costing less than a dollar is embedded in the phone and programmed to either alert the carrier to the presence of toxic chemicals in the air, and/or a central station that can monitor how many alerts in an area are being received. One might be a false positive. Hundreds might indicate the need for evacuation.

How would this wizardry work? Just as antivirus software bides its time in the background and springs to life when it spies suspicious activity, so Cell-All would regularly sniff the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds.

When a threat is sensed, an alert ensues in one of two ways. For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message or phone call. For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details—including time, location and the compound—are phoned home to an emergency operations center. While the first warning is beamed to individuals, the second warning works best with crowds. And that's where the genius of Cell-All lies—in crowd sourcing human safety.

Currently, if a person suspects that something is amiss, he might dial 9-1-1, though behavioral science tells us that it's easier to do nothing. And, as is often the case when someone phones in an emergency, the caller may be difficult to understand, diminishing the quality of information that's relayed to first responders. An even worse scenario: the person may not even be aware of the danger, like the South Carolina woman who last year drove into a colorless, odorless, and poisonous ammonia cloud.

In contrast, anywhere a chemical threat breaks out—a mall, a bus, subway or office—Cell-All will alert the authorities automatically. Detection, identification, and notification all take place in less than 60 seconds. Because the data are delivered digitally, Cell-All reduces the chance of human error. And by activating alerts from many people at once, Cell-All cleverly avoids the long-standing problem of false positives. The end result: emergency responders can get to the scene sooner and cover a larger area—essentially anywhere people are, casting a wider net than stationary sensors can.

And the privacy issue? Does this always-on surveillance mean that the government can track your precise whereabouts whenever it wants? To the contrary, Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously.

In 2007, S&T called upon the private sector to develop concepts of operations. Today, thanks to increasingly successful prototype demonstrations, the Directorate is actively funding the next step in R&D—a proof of principle—to see if the concept is workable. To this end, three teams from Qualcomm, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Rhevision Technology are perfecting their specific area of expertise. Qualcomm engineers specialize in miniaturization and know how to shepherd a product to market. Scientists from the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA's Ames Research Center have experience with chemical sensing on low-powered platforms, such as the International Space Station. And technologists from Rhevision have developed an artificial nose—a piece of porous silicon that changes colors in the presence of certain molecules, which can be read spectrographically.

Similarly, S&T is pursuing what's known as cooperative research and development agreements with four cell phone manufacturers: Qualcomm, LG, Apple and Samsung. These written agreements, which bring together a private company and a government agency for a specific project, often accelerate the commercialization of technology developed for government purposes. As a result, Dennis hopes to have 40 prototypes in about a year, the first of which will sniff out carbon monoxide and fire.